Steve McIntyre on Lewandowsky (and Josh)

“As others have observed, the number of actual respondents purporting to believe in the various conspiracies was, in many cases, very small. Only 10 respondents purported to believe in Lewandowsky’s* signature Moon Landing conspiracy. These included a disproportionate number of scam responses. Indeed, probably all of these responses were scams.

However, Lewandowsky’s statistical analysis was unequal to the very low hurdle of identifying these scam responses. Lewandowsky applied a technique closely related to principal components to scam and non-scam data alike, homogenizing them into a conspiratorial ideation.”

Fascinating. Not ONE mention is the fact a WARMEST friend (Tom Curtis) on Skeptical Science pointed to statistical questioning of the paper. Steve McIntyre (not the originator) then BASES his own analysis on his post!

We know where the real brains of applied logic now come from don’t we then?

Let’s set the record straight.
_______
Ross J.

——————-

Ross, yes, Tom deserves credit for being honest. Lewandowsky deserves, er credit for releasing some of his data (why not all). And you deserve credit for agreeing that Tom’s analysis is right. Bravo. Thus Lewandowsky should retract his paper, you agree, and since that is a far greater scientific misdemeanor than anything you’ve mentioned so far, you’ll now start writing to Lewandowsky, to UWA, to the ARC to let them know of your concern right? Yes, the real brains in this debate are obvious, and it isn’t on the Lewandowsky team. — Jo

The locals at SkS really didn’t like Tom for saying this, and Tom saw them for what there are..

Tom Curtis: “Finally, you say that I am damaging my reputation. My reputation at SkS has been built on reasoning in exactly this style, but with “skeptical” arguments and comments as the target. The only difference now is that my target is somebody closely associated with the defense of climate science. It appears, then, that my reputation with you has been built not on my analysis, but on my agreement with your opinion. [inflamatory snipped]

Poor Tom Curtis, who’s probably stunned by the realization that objective analysis isn’t appreciated in some quarters. Someone needs to throw him a lifeline; he could be on the verge of becoming an ex-warmist, and if so would be a good ally to enlist.

It is worth comparing Tom Curtis’s first look at the data, with his later analysis at Skeptical Science.
13. Tom Curtis at 12:48 PM on 1 September, 2012
37. Tom Curtis at 10:33 AM on 3 September, 2012
In between was
16. geoffchambers at 00:16 AM on 2 September, 2012
who referred to my blog.
Also consider mine and Anthony Watt’s postings.

I suggest that in two days Curtis went away, did some research which gave him pointers to where he should look. Then he did his own analysis. Steve McIntyre did the same. McIntyre brings out far more than Curtis does in the comments at Sks.

As usual Ross, you only think in terms of one side of the argument and one side capable of any thought. I view Lewandowsky’s paper as not just wrong, but vicious. If his like succeed, any minor questioning of the “science” could be construed as “denialism”, or due to a mental disorder. That could end the career any scientist.

Well said, ManicBeanCounter! I did not follow all the posts in real time but clearly you are on top of this early on and dug into the data before others. Let’s underline your point that what Lewandowsky is doing is VICIOUS and not merely incompetent: he is trying to permanently smear all who would question any aspect of CAGW with a psychological label of ***deranged conspiracy theorist***

Lewandowsky is trying to polarize, discredit, and smear. He is not providing scientific psychological research, he is engaged in socio-political propaganda.

I split the data into three groups based on responses to the climate change questions. The groups are the rejectors of AGW (mean score less than 1.34), the undecided (mean score greater than 1.34, and less than 2.67), and the acceptors (mean score greater than 2.67).

You have acknowledged my work yesterday. What I am bothered about is somebody starting a false story, like with the Gergis paper, that it was a member of the “climate science community” that recognized the errors. Like with Gergis, they will also end up trying to put some positive spin on the situation.

Tom Curtis’s analysis was correct, but it came days after many others had pointed out multiple flaws in methodology, and data Ross. The reason McIntyre cites Curtis, is that his analysis appears at Skeptical Science, (though rather reluctantly on SkS’s part), a warmist blog site.

It is also worth noting that the Tom Curtis analysis is only one component of a mulit-faceted critique of Lewandowsky’s latest work and subsequent response to criticism by McIntyre. So you are cherry picking somewhat (as do all warmists) by singling out Tom Curtis for sole praise.

In any event, if you believe the ‘brains’ for logic reside on the side of the warmists, then how do you account for Lewandowsky et al?

Ross James, the feeble Lewandowsky paper has been shredded for weeks by regulars at Bishop Hill and elsewhere. Tom Curtis certainly deserves credit for displaying the courage of his own judgments in the face of charlatans at SkS but he is far far from the first to originate these criticisms. Steve Mc did not “base” his criticism on Curtis but certainly cited Curtis generously. The Climate Audit article was much more extensive than prior criticisms and is a genuine contribution.

I have written to UWA many times on the matter of Lewandowsky and have been stonewalled. They fully support him because the university is largely staffed with similarly left leaning academics who love the funding gravy train which has been created for just about every department provided you can claim some connection to climate change in your research.

Such ‘Motivated’ Perversion of the Scientific Process is not new to this field, but the earlier practitioners were indeed a lot more subtle and competent in their deceit . They could generally bluff it out , until they reckoned with McIntyre that is.
.
The McIntyre critique is devasting to any remaining pretence of scientific credibility, though it doesn’t need that for any sane thinking person to see right through it from a glance at the questions.
.
Is Acadaemia now so full of charlatans that produce junk dressed up in sciency speak to try & bamboozle intelligent citizens ? … that will accept criticism only from their like minded peers ?
.
Does the UWA care , that it’s credibility is abused in such childish manner by supposed professionals ? Or do they give the Psychology Dept. a bit more ‘license’ , because of the sort of people that work there ? Should Psychology papers from UWA carry a health warning, that they may not be what they appear to be ?

Anybody who has survived in the tough world of Market Research will tell you that you can never infer anything from a “singular” survey. Some respondents will try to guess the answer you are looking for, and will try to get it “right”; others will do the same thing, but think it is fun to give the wrong answer, and another set will just answer at random so they can get the theatre tickets or whatever else is on offer.

Only by using the same target group, for multiple surveys, can you do a comparison over time that starts to expose the natural biases.

A singular survey, with the span of topics in this survey, is purely propaganda along the lines of, “Nine out of ten Nurses, prefer Slicko Motor Oil”. It can mean whatever you want it to mean. Which I guess, is better than having nothing to say at all.

Have you noticed the 24×7 broadcast media’s appetite for “Breaking News”, yet they don’t seem to do the same with Weather, tending to give “Weather Warning” s in various severities instead.
Why is that ?

Steve is still hitting home runs! Thank you, Steve. Or should I say, BRAVO?

On the other hand — did we not already know that Lewandowsky and the rest are gutter level thinker? Jokes about toilet paper are good fun…for a while. But the world around us is still poisoned by a disease for which we have no cure and no action plan to find one.

Climate change and green — as I’ve pointed out before — are now part of popular culture. It colors what our politicians say and do. And even if Romney is elected the EPA will probably keep on steamrolling American enterprise with CO2 and other useless regulation to justify their continued existence to the public and their bosses, clear up to the White House.

Exposing the shameless provably doesn’t faze them in the slightest. And politicians always hold up a wet finger to see which way the wind is blowing. So the question is this: what are we going to do about it before it’s too late? For those of you who ever played tag as a child — we are “it”. And I can’t find any organized attempt to persuade both voters and politicians with the weight of (lack of) evidence or force of numbers, if not both.

Or enemy — and they are that — is working to subvert our governments and our nations. What are we going to do about it?

I submit that we lack sufficient evidence that Lewandowsky is a serious psychological researcher who deserves to be regarded as any “scientist” of cognition. We see a sophomoric ideologue who is using a “survey” instrument which any high school student should be able to discredit. The journal Psychological Science has embarrassed itself and thrown its own credibility into question. Such “peer review” as the Lewandowsky et al paper may have received was evidently incompetent.

Steve McIntyre concentrates on the conspiracy questions, not on the free market questions. However one point he does make is

Tom Curtis, an editor at Skeptical Science and no friend to skeptics, drew attention to two respondents, who identified themselves as skeptics and as libertarians

.
Nowhere does Lewandowsky use the term “libertarian”, but McIntyre with wide knowledge of sceptics, automatically does. There are probably a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, the antonym of “libertarian” is “authoritarian”. It would have put environmentalists outside of their comfort zone.
Second, it would immediately raised in peoples minds as to why there were no political questions. For instance, nothing on the trade-off between liberty or democracy and “saving the planet”.
Finally, it would have completed undermined the hypothesis that Lewandowsky was trying to establish – the only people who are motivated to oppose climate change are a bunch of fruit cakes, that believe any rubbish. Correct me if I am wrong, but libertarians are primarily opposed to tyranny in all its forms. Many libertarians see environmentalism as the new authoritarian ideology. They also believe, with plenty of empirical evidence to support these views, is that tyranny equates with poverty, freedom with prosperity.